The flight to Palm Springs turned out to be a lot worse than what I had planned for. My plan for VFR on top didn't quite pan out for the whole flight.
Departure from PAO wasn't bad
I brought my foldable bike
So far so good
Trying new flying software :)
Mmmh, not as nice anymore
Doh, this got bad quickly, and from there, I was hosed for VFR
Then, if you pay attention to the red track, I didn't quite get lost, but avoiding rising clouds, I got cornered until I ended up IMC and resumed on course, but on IFR rails. Typically I hate that, but considering the weather, I was happy to oblige.
I got stuck at 16,000ft with the plane at the edge of stall and clouds still climbing around me. I ended up having to switch to IFR, and thanks to ATC I was able to go through the clouds on the nevada side after a while, but it was "interesting" for a little while.
(some time passed where I was way too busy flying the plane, transitioning to IFR and making sure I wasn't icing up)
the other side in nevada was much nicer
VCV, the airplane cemetary
And finally I made it to Palm Springs, relieved. Few people made it that day.
made it!
weather was still bad there on the CA side
barely anyone flew in and crossed with weather like that
Some pictures of the expo:
Harrison Ford was there for one of the keynotes
Brian Shul gave a great talk on his days flying the SR71. Great stuff...
I bought his book and he signed it for me
More pictures of the expo:
The kings always give a nice safety talk
Two pilots from Flying Wild Alaska gave a talk
They had some nice parties. The first one was a pool party with entertainment:
The 2nd night party, was even better, we went to fault line, with nice entertainment, and jeep rides to the nearby views from the fault.
On my way out I went to the air museum before flying out. Nice little Museum.
After visiting the museum, it was time to fly out towards Long Beach which was my next destination for my trip. I took off a bit before sunset and went to fly to fault line to get a couple of shots before turning back
this is where we had our party
and got to Long Beach with my rental car waiting, nice.
